Know Your Organic Producers!Joel and Annalisa Wild Miller of Wild Miller Farm in Palermo raise MOFGA-certified organic produce and hay, which they sell through their farm stand/credit-system CSA, wholesale accounts and at the Common Ground Country Fair. They farm with draft horses and say, "We believe that carefully executed and ecologically sound farming is an art, something we constantly strive for. Also that farming with draft animals is a craft, one that we try to improve upon every day." They are also raising their two young children on the farm. For more information, please visit www.wildmillergardens.com.Please support MOFGA certified organic farmers and producers!

Let chickens come home to roostPortland Press Herald - 2/16/2009.By Tom Bell - The growing popularity of poultry has caused local governments to change zoning ordinances to allow chickens in backyards. The ordinances typically ban roosters – which are not necessary for egg production – and contain requirements that hens be kept in a coop that has a fenced-in chicken run.

Could America be facing a large-scale food crisis?Portland Press Herald - 2/16/2009.By Leigh Donaldson – According to [Wes] Jackson, industrialized agricultural policies have helped to destroy productive farmlands for more than 50 years. He adds that we think food will always be there as long as we have the money to buy it. But, if we keep messing around with the land and the people who work it, the food supply will decline.

Farms without toads: the canary banished from the coal mineOrganic Consumers - 2/16/2009.By Jack Bradigan Spula, Northeast Organic Farming Association – Farming is nothing if not a set of relationships with living things, and the usual list of intimacies include the farmer and her cow, the farmer and her chicken, and so on. But who ever thinks of the farmer and her toad?

Dangerous foodThe New York Times - 2/16/2009.Editorial – The more investigators look into the latest food-safety scandal involving the Peanut Corporation of America, the worse it gets.

Sunday, 1 p.m., 769 Congress Street, Portland Maine. Join Chef Frank Giglio as we learn about and make mead! In this class you will learn the step by step method for preparing your own medicinal mead at home. Each student will start a batch of mead during the class and be able to take it home to ferment and later enjoy. Fee information and registration here: http://www.mofgastore.org/product.sc?productId=270&categoryId=5. Questions? Email alibby@mofga.org.

Tuesday, Maine Civic Center, Augusta. MOFGA offers presentations and discussion groups covering a wide range of sustainable agriculture subjects. Presentations are free and open to the public, and are held in the Washington/York Room, the Piscataquis/Sagadahoc Room, and the Oxford Room. No pre-registration required. MOFGA also has an information exhibit during all three days of the Trades Show. MOFGA members are encouraged to attend the Association's Annual Meeting, which will be held from 1:30 to 3:00 in the Piscataquis/Sagadahoc Room.

Saturday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., MOFGA's Common Ground Education Center, Unity. Instructor is David Smith of Sparky's Apiaries. Our beekeeping short course will cover the essentials to get you going in the world of beekeeping. Fee: $50 for MOFGA members; $75 for non-members. More information.